Highlights: IMSA Sahlen's Six Hours of the Glen
Watch extended highlights of IMSA's WeatherTech Sahlen's Six Hours of the Glen at Watkins Glen International.
Video Transcript
Welcome to Watkins Glen International.
For those of you on RS2 and Sirius channel 206, now joined on the international feed as well.
We're at the 3.4 mile, 11 corner Watkins Glen International Circuit, the so-called Grand Prix layout.
And the history here is so thick you could cricket- cut it with a cricket stump.
Going back to the days of the final Formula 1 Grand Prix that used to be held here down through the years.
We've got 54 cars ready to go racing.
Action areas right off the top at turn number one, a tricky downhill right-hander.
Dries Vanthoor, Felipe Albuquerque, Laurens Vanthoor, and it's the red and white Keiler, Whelen Cadillac that comes to the green flag and takes them down there.
Everyone fanning out.
Can see the Wayne Taylor Cadillac having a little look further back, but it is as you were from the start.
No, round the outside.
I think the Acura number 93 is up into third.
Yes, it is, and that's Renger van der Zande making the best of his start as they go up the hill.
Very tight through there.
Almost like a street circuit is what the drivers are telling me.
The GTs are off and running, and Jack Hawksworth has converted pole position there.
But Harry King is under pressure from Neel Jani in the Paul Miller Racing BMW.
Top three absolutely together in GTD Pro, and I think Neel Jani is gonna go through.
No, Harry King fights back on the curbs going up the hill.
They almost touch.
Sitting right in behind them, the Ford of Chris Mies with a watching brief at the moment, but we've got through the first few corners.
Seven podiums in a row coming into this one.
Got their first win of those podiums at Detroit last time out, and they just are in a groove right now.
We heard from Earl Bamber in our Countdown to Green show, and he made two great points.
He said, "You know, we've put the hard work in over 2025.
We had a lot of heartbreak in 2025."
But he also said the team, they're having a lot of fun and, and that is, that's vitally important, isn't it?
And you can tell.
the whole demeanor of the drivers and the lap times don't lie.
I mean, at, at Sebring they could have won the race, but they didn't in the end.
But, since then really they've had a car that's just looked on rails.
And Jack Aitken driving beautifully right now, and already onto the back of the GTD class after only eight minutes of racing.
Arjun Kangarpady on the team.
This is the car that ground to a halt earlier on in the week.
There's debris as well, and we've got a full course yellow.
Debris coming out of the inner loop.
Now, that looks like a little bit of body work maybe, and this will pick everybody up.
John Field went off course at that area, and I wonder if that is some Oh, he's got a left rear tire that has broken apart and is taking parts of the body work out.
So he's lost part of the rear wing.
Now, has he gone off?
Ollie Jarvis and Seth Lucas to get in there.
So he came through.
Oh, came through the new part.
The entry to that, the car got away from him and the left rear, he went the wrong way, spun around 180 degrees and went the wrong way into the wall, and that's what's caused the problem.
He'll come into the closed pits.
So we'll get all the GTP cars back to the front, and that is done.
We're going back green with five minutes, five hours, 38 minutes and 30 seconds as they go across the line.
And once again, Jack Aitken weaving backwards and forwards, but it's a good restart with Tom Blomqvist in second, Renger van der Zande in third.
Cadillac, Acura, Acura, Cadillac.
Lauren Heinrich holding his starting position in fifth for JDC Miller.
Laurens Vanthoor has made up spots for Porsche Penske Motorsport.
Felipe Albuquerque's gone backwards a little bit.
He's in seventh.
And they stream onto that 180 miles an hour run.
They're, they're wiggling things around, so the driver clearly reporting some issues or it's a sensor problem.
Just wonder what Graham has been, Graham Doyle has been, been reporting to them.
Let's see if we can get an update from our driver database informed pit lane team.
Oh, just a second, chaps, because we've just had another incident and again, it's the Intersport car and it's at the same part of the track.
Cadillac safety car will neutralize the field.
Louis Deltraz, we think, has just lost a place actually to Lauren Heinrich as he was going through traffic, tried to go around the outside of Sheena Monk, got the whole car airborne.
When- Let's take a look at our VP Racing, our VP Fuels in-race update.
We'll start, in the GTD category, which is led by Ins- No, it's not.
it is led by 13.
Oh, oh, there's been a shunt under yellow, and there's all kinds of carnage on the far side of the field, including the better placed Well, it's the Aston Martin Valkyrie.
It's the number 60 Acura, so Roman De Angelis, and the 60 car.
There's a GT car in there as well, which I think was one of the Ferraris.
It was the Dr- No, it was the DragonSpeed Corvette.
It's the DragonSpeed Corvette in there, and that is under safety car.
And this, this is gonna take a lot of clearing up.
Henrik Edman in the number 81 DragonSpeed car.
The AMR safety crews in the Porsche Cayenne and the brand new for 2026 Ford F-150 Raptor are on the scene.
I can see two Of the drivers are out just waiting.
Well, all three of the drivers are out now.
That's the main thing.
It was Colin Brown who'd taken over the Acura, and he is the last driver out.
They've all got out under their own auspices.
That's the good news.
Oh, my goodness me.
And that is a huge incident.
Cars facing the wrong direction, and this is gonna take some, some sorting out.
They were sitting in the pit lane with the red light.
Now, has somebody run into the back of them whilst they were in the pit lane?
Is that what's happened?
Is that the, the pit lane?
No, we get the green light.
Out we go.
Actually, we're going into traffic though.
There's still cars going around and blending into GT traffic, but there was definitely a green light.
Through the S's, all is good there.
No overtaking allowed.
We're still under Oh, and then, for whatever reason, the Acura of Colin Brown stops towards the top of the hill.
And the second of the ERX 06s from Meyer Shank Racing.
Nice clean start.
Very sensible from Jeremy Clark.
He dropped way back from the rest of the prototypes and led the LMP 2s through.
Now, was there a pass before the line?
Felipe Nasr was very, very close.
Well, Peter, it's what we saw later on as well.
It sounds as though for whatever reason, the GT cars were parked up to what?
To allow the GTP cars to go through?
I'm not sure.
Four minutes to go.
Let's get back down to the pit lane and Arjuna.
Jeremy Clark has been a revelation since he joined the IMSA paddock at Sebring last year, and he's now got two pole positions in 2026.
Tom Dillman, his teammate, how quickly does he get up to speed at some of these fast tracks?
Yeah, since we did a couple of days on every track, that he could learn the track on a, in an LMP 2 car.
He, he starts FP1 with a really good pace already and, yeah, he has been fighting for pole, in the last four events.
Three pole out of, the last four races.
and now he's, doing a great job, keeping the lead.
In terms of your stint towards the end of the race, what have you and the team been talking about?
A lot of the talk overnight I'm sure has been about the changes at the track up towards the bus stop, where I've been told LMP 2 can now take a slightly different line.
Four hours, 31 minutes and 16, 15, 14, 12, 11, 10, and the green flag is out.
We're racing again.
And once again, the red Front and Action Express Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R takes the green flag first.
A bit of a lock up there from Louis Deltraz.
continuing to lead, and he's pulled out a little gap.
Also joining in there, Lawrence Vans say.
And a problem for the Meintjes 911.
Smoke coming out from under the rear of the car.
Is that engine or is it tire?
I think it's right rear tire.
I think it's a right rear tire for Luke Hartung.
He's just come through the toe of the boot.
Yes, it is.
Three hours, 42 minutes and 25 seconds to go, and we are going back to green flag racing.
To the line, and once again, it's a fabulous run from the Whelen Cadillac.
They have been brilliant on the restart, but not quite as much of a jump away than we, that we've seen in the past with the I saw something that looked a little bit odd.
Somebody taking the shortcut.
Yes, and it's the number five prototype.
It's another full course yellow.
There's two cars involved here.
Has there been a coming together?
That's Keelan Frederik in the JDC-Miller Porsche.
They'll lose the lead lap then because he's taken the shortcut.
Also involved there, or at least also at that same part of the circuit Will leave the pits closed.
Normally they'll leave the pits closed, but if we go yellow again, even if it's within 15 minutes, then we'll have a normal yellow flag period.
We've gone back green.
Three hours, 22 minutes and 50 seconds to go.
And once again, again it pretty good pla- practice at the Ooh, side by side.
Combat at the front of the field at the moment.
In the Europol and AO battling for third and fourth position in LMP 2.
They're still side by side as they go up the top of the hill.
And following in behind them, Rasmus.
No, that's not Rasmus Lind.
It's, Toby Sowry and Hunter McElrea, isn't it, who's right there.
All of the top eight are on the lead lap.
Keelan Frederik, he's worked his way through the LMP 2 field and sits a lap and 20 seconds off the back of the field.
And down at turn one, there's an issue.
Is this another tire problem?
Right front damage to the Shopify number 11 of David Hennecke, Hansen and TDS Racing.
Mathias Beche and Toby Lutke in those cars.
That is not a tire problem.
That is a suspension problem.
He's gonna have to do a full lap all the way round to get that car to the pit lane.
Now, there was battling going on ahead of him, and he's run into the back of, I think, one of the United cars there, and that's collapsed the right front suspension.
He's hit the wall on the left-hand side.
So David now having to limp back So under yellow flags as we're concluding the class splits.
Two hours and 34 minutes to go.
And we'll go back to green with Laurin Heinrich back behind the wheel of the JDC-Miller car.
He's fighting to get back onto the tail of the other eight, the remaining eight GTP cars.
Remember that bizarre incident we had earlier on that took out Colin Brown's, Acura, the number 60 Acura, and the number 23 Aston Martin Valkyrie.
And those two cars have not yet returned, although the other car involved has.
That was the, DragonSpeed number 81 GTD.
Two hours, 12 minutes and 37 seconds to go, and the green flag is in the air.
Generally speaking, the Whelen Cadillac has had a good restarts and starts, and Earl Bamber's had another good one again.
And a wide entry to turn number one for Philippe, the BMW.
Rolling the dice on usable energy, down to 50%.
And an interesting call, John, that with 18% of the energy left, that Kakuota and the, Dex Image- Imaging Cadillac are coming in.
This might be the very last time in 2026 we see Kakuota in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
No more starts scheduled in this Acura 93 program, but they're gonna strap in Renger van der Zande.
Looks as though as well, John, perfect timing for these teams to come into the pit lane because is there a full course yellow?
To green flag racing we go then, with the number 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac right behind the former race winner, the 31 Cadillac.
Whelen Engineer Jack Aitken has a little look up the inside, but no.
And meanwhile, they're trying to figure it out a little bit further back with Felipe Nasr trying to hold off a charging Louis Deletraz.
And on my section, guys, it was a lot of GTD cars in, including Wright Motorsports, which was running in podium contention at the time they did their final stop.
No tires, energy only in that Porsche.
In fact, all of the GTD class cars I've seen, and there've been about four of them down here at this section of the pits, it's been no tires, energy/fuel only into those cars as they get ready to go the distance from here.
Talk about rubbing is racing.
We've got IMSA President John Doonan coming to Le Mans with a bunch of NASCARs for Le Mans Classic, next weekend, and I'm looking forward to that call.
But the GTPs are going at it all the way through some of the fastest corners in US road racing motorsport.
As the white flag flies, the tactical decision for Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing to tell their driver to allow the 31 to go through, one Cadillac, one team, and that allowed Jack Aitken and the rest of the Whelen Cadillac team to get up the road.
There was a possibility that they might have a penalty, and they needed to get up the road.
That penalty hasn't come, so it's Cadillac that win the BDO Nose Strategy Award.
I'm leaving it to someone else to work out who to give to that.
Maybe you have to give it to the program management for that one.
And in GTD, or GT, it's going to the 912 team of Manthey.
First of all, on the s- p- we're go- it's the last lap.
Full course yellow, 65, Chris Mies in the wall, and that will freeze the scene.
That is turn nine.
Coming back onto the substantive part of the circuit, and Chris Mies has gone in hard in a very odd place.
Oh my goodness.
And we will finish under yellow.
So it is the 912 First Form Manthey car, wins bronze and wins GTD, who gets our LMP, GT Nose Strategy by BDO.
Good news is Chris Mies, who's had a trying year, he's moving around.
He's fine.
How did that car get there, having hit on the left-hand side first?
Here comes the leader, soon to be the winner.
Right behind the FAF, Temorario follows home Cadillac Whelen.
